GRACE AND DISGRACE is the true memoir of the wife of a brutal mob boss in the Deep South

Co-authored by an acclaimed journalist and memoirist, this incredible book from Palmetto Publishing is a shocking Southern true crime story

Charleston, SC, Oct. 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Ruby Nell Birt’s powerful memoir, written largely in her voice, is an inspiring story of faith and resilience and an unwavering spirit of grace and forgiveness. Author Phil Hudgins spent countless hours with Ruby Nell and others to produce Grace and Shame: Living with Faith and the Leader of the Dixie Mafia. Hudgins is a retired journalist who has written two other books: Travels with Foxfire, published by Anchor Books, and I took the forkthe memoir of journalist and philanthropist Lessie Smithgall.

In Grace and shameRuby Birt talks about her life with her husband, Billy Sunday Birt, one of Georgia’s most notorious criminals, a man responsible for the murders of more than fifty people between the late 1960s and 1974. When her husband was finally brought to justice After she ended up in prison, she became a single mother with five children, at a crossroads she never expected.

By embracing her Pentecostal heritage and working five jobs to provide for her family, Ruby Nell exemplified tremendous perseverance and faith in God to get through each day. Despite her pain and struggle—not to mention the shadow of her husband’s legacy—she became a respected member of her community and built a future for generations to come.

Grace and shame is the story of an extraordinary, godly life, that of Ruby Nell Birt, who refused to leave her home in Winder, Georgia, despite encouragement from friends and doctors to move.

Thanks to details that son Shane Birt remembered from prison conversations with his father, this book helped solve a fifty-year-old triple murder in Boone, North Carolina. Billy Sunday Birt and three other men were responsible for the deaths of a man, his wife and their 18-year-old son during a snowstorm on February 3, 1972.

Grace and shame is available for purchase online at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. For more information about the author, please visit philhudgins.com

About the author:

Phil Hudgins is a retired journalist who worked in the newspaper industry for more than fifty years. He is a 1964 graduate of the University of Georgia and a 1974 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He is the author, together with Jessica Henrick, of Traveling with Foxfire: Stories of People, Passions, and Practices from Southern Appalachia and from the memoirs of philanthropist/journalist Lessie Smithgall, I took the fork. He and his wife, Shirley, have two daughters, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. They live in Georgia.

Media contact:

Shane Birt

E-mail: (email protected)

Available for Interviews: Author, Phil Hudgins

Appendix

• Grace and Shame: Living with Faith and the Leader of the Dixie Mafia

CONTACT: Leah Joseph

Palmetto Publishing

(email protected)